here's an interesting article on Obama's chief fundraiser - a heavy hitter (who's also quite progressive) and several branches of her family are also backing the Obama campaign (and her brother backs Clinton)...fyi...
Billionaire breaks gender barriers on campaign trail
By John McCormick
Chicago Tribune
Oct. 18, 2007
As billionaire Penny Pritzker stood in the kitchen of her Lincoln Park home in early January, she and her husband debated whether her schedule could take on another massive challenge.
The Hyatt hotel heiress was running multiple businesses, trying to spend time with her two teenage children and dealing with numerous civic and philanthropic responsibilities.
"I can't do this," she recalls saying. Then, her husband, Dr. Bryan Traubert, started knocking on the kitchen's door.
"He said, `This is destiny knocking on the door of our nation,'" she recalls. "`You have to find a way to make this work.'"
Within days, as she had anticipated, Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., formally asked Pritzker, a longtime friend, to manage the fundraising for his presidential bid.
Nearly nine months and tens of millions of dollars later, Pritzker, 48, is making significant headway in a game traditionally dominated by men and testosterone.
With contributions likely to approach $100 million by the end of the year - not much less than the Chicago White Sox payroll - Obama has set fundraising records and, at times, outraised Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., who entered the nomination contest with a more established donor network.
But more challenges for Pritzker may lie in the months ahead. A growing number of pundits are proclaiming Clinton the likely nominee, while the Obama phenomenon may lose some of its novelty as the campaign winds on, developments that could make it harder for Obama to attract cash.
How Pritzker confronts those challenges will be key. In her first in-depth interview on her role as Obama's national finance chairwoman, Pritzker, who guards her privacy and rarely talks to the media, declined to take credit for helping break something of a glass ceiling in presidential fundraising.
"Women are increasingly becoming more aware that gender has nothing to do with fundraising, and therefore you are seeing numbers continuing to grow as they realize they can be successful in this type of endeavor," she said.
Still, others note just how unusual it is for a woman to have her job. "She's the only woman I know who has been the head of a presidential finance campaign," said Lou Susman, a fellow Chicagoan and veteran fundraiser who served as Sen. John Kerry's national finance chairman in 2003 and 2004.
"It's really groundbreaking."
Typical of most presidential campaigns, women account for less than one-fifth of Obama's so-called bundlers, fundraisers his campaign defines as someone who has collected at least $50,000 in contributions.
"The fact that we have a woman as a finance chair is a good statement," said Alan Solomont, a New England fundraiser on Pritzker's team. "But she was the best pick whether she was a man or a woman."
Until this campaign, Pritzker had never led the fundraising effort for any candidate, much less one running for the nation's highest office. Still, Obama advisers say her wealth, connections and loyalty to the candidate made her a natural pick.
If there was any nervousness about taking the job, it did not show on Feb. 11, the day after Obama announced his presidential bid in Springfield, Ill.
With about 75 fundraisers gathered at the Hyatt Regency Chicago, members of Obama's staff watched nervously as a former Kerry fundraiser asked Pritzker a detailed question.
"It was dead silent for about five seconds," recalled someone who was there when Pritzker, glasses perched on the tip of her nose, led the meeting. "She said, `Duly noted' and there was not a peep in the room."
Those who work with her say Pritzker often makes more than 50 calls a week to fundraisers and potential donors, a group known for being opinionated about campaign strategy.
"This is not a hobby for her," said Valerie Jarrett, an Obama confidant who chaired fundraising for his 2004 U.S. Senate race. "She is completely devoted to his candidacy."
David Friedman, an Obama bundler from Boulder, Colo., said Pritzker has brought an entrepreneurial feel to the fundraising effort.
When he and two others pitched the idea of creating an "Obama University" to train less-experienced fundraisers on how to raise bigger sums, she asked for a brief memo and quickly made it a reality.
With an estimated net worth of $2.8 billion, Pritzker is ranked 135th on Forbes' list of the richest Americans. She has developed a Chicago skyscraper, worked as president of a commercial real estate and luxury senior housing firm, and served as chairwoman for a credit-reporting company.
But politics has also always been in her blood. Growing up in California, business and politics were the main dinner table topics. She was 11 when she met Nancy Pelosi, when the current speaker of the House and Pritzker's mother stuffed envelopes for a Democratic Party mailing.
Pritzker, who has a law degree and MBA, said she couldn't remember when she first started making political contributions. Public records, however, show that by the early 1990s, she was giving to dozens of candidates and political committees.
Pritzker's acquaintance with Obama started in the mid-1990s by way of a basketball court at a North Side YMCA, where Obama's brother-in-law, Craig Robinson, coached one of her children's teams. Marty Nesbitt, a close Obama friend and Pritzker business associate, also had a child on the team.
"Through Craig and Marty, I was introduced to Barack and Michelle," Pritzker said, referring to Obama and his wife.
Soon the Obama family was making visits to the Pritzker summer home in Michigan. It was there - she believes during a bonfire on the beach - that Obama first mentioned in 2002 that he was thinking of running for the U.S. Senate in 2004 and wanted her support.
The next morning, Pritzker and her husband went for a run. With the Obamas still back at the house, it was the first chance they had to talk alone about what they could do to help what was then a long-shot candidacy. "It took about no time for us to say that this is something that we wanted to do," she said.
In this campaign, she downplays suggestions that fundraisers are becoming concerned about Obama's lack of progress in national polls. She points to places like Iowa and South Carolina, where Obama has spent more time. "It's a jump ball in those states," she said.
After months of money raising, Pritzker said she is glad it is finally fall. "The game is upon us now," she said. "So much of the work that we have done since the beginning of the year has been preparing for this time when the American public, more broadly, is paying attention to the race."
Pritzker declined to discuss in any detail her brother, Jay Robert "J.B." Pritzker, who is helping raise money for the Clinton camp. "We have a history in our family of supporting different candidates," she said. "So it's really not unusual."
Asked about her relationship with her brother, who was also on an opposing side of a dispute earlier this decade over how to divide the family's fortunes, she demurred. "I kind of want to keep my private life private, if you don't mind," she said. |
